A possible rise in the minimum investment required for a form of visa to the US is prompting a surge in applications from HNW Chinese individuals, a report said.

A debate by US lawmakers on whether to push up the cost of immigrant investor visas to $1.35 million from $500,000 - a similar move to the hike taken by the UK in recent years - has triggered a rush in applicants from China, a media report said. 

Bloomberg quoted Can-Reach (Pacific), a Beijing-based agency that enables applications for EB-5 visas, as saying that some clients want to ensure applications happen before 28 April, the date the programme will end unless it is extended or changed by Congress.

Wealthy Chinese citizens have been among the most enthusiastic applicants for the EB-5 programme, a form of “golden visa” system, which are used by jurisdictions to bring in high net worth individuals. Countries operating such “citizenship-by-investment” schemes include Malta, the UK, Spain and Portugal. Canada and Hong Kong have put their systems on hold in recent years. These programmes can be controversial, raising concerns that the wealthy are fast-tracked into getting passports at the expense of less affluent groups. Also, as immigration has become a hot-potato issue with the rise of political populism, pressure to review these programmes has intensified. In the UK, the minimum investment sum required for a Tier 1 visa was hiked to £2 million from £1 million, and this has been cited as a reason for a fall-off in applications.

The Bloomberg report noted that the sensitivities around the EB-5 system go to the White House, because the programme channels money to large US property projects across the country, including those of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor.

The report said that if the programme is curtailed, it could hit a process that is said to have helped create at least 200,000 US jobs and brought in up to $14 billion from Chinese investors.

As this publication noted some time ago, while China’s economy has been relatively strong in recent years (albeit slowing from the hectic pace a decade ago), there has been a notable trend of HNW Chinese individuals trying to get a second passport, or emigrate completely. (Some of that desire to get out may be caused by worries that China’s ruling Communist Party is not relaxing its grip on power.) Shanghai’s Hurun Research Institute noted three years ago that some 64 per cent of the high net worth individuals it surveyed (393 HNW and UNHW individuals) were either emigrating or wanted to do so. 

In recent years there has been discontent about alleged abuses of the US system. Two years ago it was reported that the desire for Chinese persons to acquire foreign nationality has led to problems. 

Chinese investors, numbering several thousand annually, are reported by Bloomberg to account for as much as 85 per cent of the annual EB-5 investor total. It added that about 900 firms in China are registered to handle emigration, and most of them offer EB-5 services.